t 


EDUCATIONAL  REQUISITIONS 


FOR  THE 

CHURCH  IN  CHINA 


THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  CHRISTIAN 
LEADERSHIP  IN  EDUCATION  TO 
THE  CHURCH  IN  CHINA 


By  W.  Henry  Grant 

Secretary,  Trustees,  Canton  Christian  College  and  Honorary 
Secretary  Foreign  Missions  Conference  of  North  America 


TRUSTEES  OF  THE  CANTON  CHRISTIAN  COLLEGE 
I  56  FIFTH  AVENUE 
NEW  YORK 

1924 


PREFACE 


HOSE  wishing  to  extend  their  study  of  the  points 


-L  brought  up  in  this  brochure  or  in  the  “Report 
of  the  Commission”  representing  the  Mission  Boards 
and  Societies  conducting  work  in  China  will  find  quite 
an  extensive  new  literature  available,  comprehending 
almost  every  line  of  wiork,  organization  and  method 
suggested. 

The  distinctly  missionary  literature  and  articles 
which  should  be  noted  are  “Education  in  Africa,” 
the  report  prepared  by  Thomas  Jesse  Jones,  Chairman 
of  the  Commission,  issued  by  the  Phelps-Stokes  Fund, 
297  Fourth  Avenue,  New  York — 1922,  “Village  Edu¬ 
cation  in  India,”  the  “Report  of  a  Commission  of  In¬ 
quiry,”  Humphrey  Milford,  Oxford  University  Press 
1920,  followed  by  the  report  of  a  subsequent  confer¬ 
ence  at  Moga,  Punjab,  December  5-11,  1922;  National 
Christian  Conference,  Calcutta;  Articles  and  reports 
on  Latin  America. 

General  educational  surveys  and  studies  are  issued 
by  every  state  in  the  U.  S.  A.  and  by  the  Bureau  of 
Education  in  Washinton,  D.  C.  Much  of  the  literature 
is  available  on  request.  Bulletin  1922,  No.  42,  “Analytic 
Survey  of  the  State  Courses  of  Study  for  Rural  Ele¬ 
mentary  Schools,”  Charles  M.  Reinoehl,  116  pages, 
20  cents;  Bulletin,  1923,  No.  9,  “Supervision  of  One 
Teacher  Schools,”  Maud  C.  Newberry,  55  pages,  10 
cents;  Bulletin,  1923,  No.  36,  “Rural  Education,”  by 


Katharine  McCook,  specialist  in  Rural  Education  of 
the  U.  S.  Bureau,  35  pages,  5  cents ;  all  three  obtained 
at  the  Government  Printing  Office,  Washington,  D.  C. 

An  invaluable  book  for  college  administrators  has 
recently  been  published  by  the  General  Education 
Board,  61  Broadway,  New  York,  entitled  “College  and 
University  Finance,”  including  a  chapter  on  organiza¬ 
tion,  by  Trevor  Arnett,  many  of  whose  suggestions 
are  applicable  to  any  board  or  mission  administering 
the  finances  of  a  school  or  group  of  schools  which  in¬ 
volve  organization  and  accounting. 

These  Notes  are  in  line  with  the  Report  of  the 
Commission  of  1921-22  on  Christian  Education  in 
China. 


6 


CHAPTER  I 
Introductory 

THE  Commission  on  Christian  Education  in  China 
of  1921-22  has  made  a  general  analytical 
survey  and  published  its  report  thereon  with 
many  valuable  suggestions.  This  report  should  be 
carefully  studied  by  every  missionary  educator  and 
administrator  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  educa¬ 
tional  work  in  China.  Doubtless  the  chief  concern  of 
the  Commission,  as  of  those  who  have  given  years 
of  thought  to  the  subject,  is  that  the  official  boards, 
representing  the  churches,  shall  seriously  study  this 
report  in  relation  to  their  missions  in  China  in  order 
to  discover  where  and  how*  the  recommendations  of 
the  Commission  actually  apply  to  their  work  and  how 
far  the  organizations  suggested  are  practicable,  and 
to  that  extent  encourage  their  missions  to  carry  out 
the  recommendations  of  the  Commission.  The  mis¬ 
sions  need  such  encouragement  from  the  boards  to 
enable  them  to  break  away  from  tradition  and  take 
new  steps  which  in  some  cases  reverse  or  change 
policies  initiated  by  their  predecessors. 

The  centrifugal  force  in  missions  is  always  stronger 
than  the  centripetal.  Many  missions  are  too  extended 
for  their  numerical  strength  in  effective  workers,  pres¬ 
ent  or  prospective.  It  is  exceptional  for  a  mission 

7 


to  be  sufficiently  consolidated  and  efficiently  organized 
that  it  naturally  produces  unity  and  organization  in 
educational  work  or  anything  that  can  properly  be 
called  an  organized  system  of  schools  under  a  qualified 
administration  and  organized  personnel. 

Many  schools  have  too  many  students  for  good  re¬ 
sults  and  some  are  too  many  kinds  of  a  school.  There 
are  many  captains  with  no  generals.  Most  of  us  are 
trying  to  do  too  much  and  too  many  kinds  of  things. 
It  is  plain  that  this  is  not  what  is  meant  by  organiza¬ 
tion.  Most  missionaries  engaged  in  educational  work 
prefer  to  be  privates  or  at  most  sergeants  rather  than 
generals.  Nevertheless  there  must  be  generals,  if  there 
is  to  be  a  plan  and  an  objective  and  co-ordination  in 
attack.  These  generals  will  somehow  have  to  be 
selected  rather  than  elected. 

The  official  missionary  boards  cannot  overemphasize 
the  importance  of  concentrating  effort  upon  the  prepa¬ 
ration  of  Chinese  leaders  in  education  rather  than 
upon  the  maintenance  or  extension  with  church  funds 
of  all  kinds  of  schools  without  a  qualified  native  per¬ 
sonnel  to  warrant  such  maintenance  or  extension.  As 
Thomas  Carlyle  puts  it,  “When  the  man  is  got,  all  is 
got.”  How  futile  then  to  conduct  so  many  half- 
manned  schools  and  elementary  schools  with  half 
qualified  teachers,  especially  without  expert  and  con¬ 
stant  supervision.  (See  remarks  Ecumenical  Mission¬ 
ary  Conference,  New  York,  1900.)  For  w'hile  the 
Commission  does  not  say  “Your  schools  are  ineffec¬ 
tive/’  it  virtually  says  “You  would  much  better  give 
up  some  of  them  in  order  to  make  the  others  stronger” 

8 


and  “Your  schools  would  be  more  effective  if  they 
were  co-ordinated  under  an  organized  system.” 

The  chief  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  closing  of 
any  particular  school  is  that  after  a  school  is  once 
opened  there  are  so  many  reasons  for  its  continued 
maintenance,  considering  its  opportunities  as  compared 
with  some  other  school  maintained  by  the  same  group, 
that  it  seems  somewhat  like  deciding  whether  to  cut 
off  one’s  right  or  left  leg,  also  that  co-ordinating  dis¬ 
similar  schools  is  fraught  with  the  danger  of  dis¬ 
organizing  their  internal  adjustments  and  unsuiting 
the  type  of  school  to  the  staff  and  students  available. 

It  were  perhaps  a  delicate  matter  upon  which  to  ad¬ 
vise  the  missionary  boards  and  societies  that  their 
administrative  machinery  both  at  home  and  in  China 
is  in  conflict  with  the  idea  of  “specialized  administra¬ 
tion.”  More  and  more  does  it  become  necessary  for 
missionaries  to  specialize  and  even  highly  so,  and  spe¬ 
cialists  cannot  function  along  lines  of  highly  organized 
work  demanding  a  continuous  policy  without  adminis¬ 
trators  who  are  specialists  in  administration. 

A  clear  statement  of  this  is  contained  in  the  Report 
of  the  Committee  on  the  Training  of  Hospital  Execu¬ 
tives,  April  1922,  entitled  “Principles  of  Hospital  Ad¬ 
ministration,  etc.,”  page  14,  under  Hospital  Organiza¬ 
tion;  “The  chief  function  of  administration  is  to  cre¬ 
ate  an  environment  conducive  to  the  spontaneous  crea¬ 
tive  expressions  of  the  groups  working  within  the 
organization  and  to  relieve  the  professional  workers 
as  much  as  possible  of  non-professional  and  non¬ 
technical  duties;  to  provide,  then,  the  facilities  and 

9 


V «  9 

_>  O.  o 


machinery  by  which  the  fullest  expression  of  functions 
may  most  easily  be  obtained.  A  sound  plan  of  organi¬ 
zation  must  be  constructed  in  relation  to  the  funda¬ 
mental  unit  of  operation,  to  the  objectives  sought,  to 
the  personnel  it  serves  and  not  the  reverse.” 


10 


CHAPTER  II 


Education  and  Training  for  Leadership  the 
Definite  Objective  of  All 

Everything  that  can  be  done  should  be  done  to 
prepare  the  highest  grade  of  teachers  and  adminis¬ 
trators  for  secondary  and  higher  schools.  Pedagogy 
and  teaching  practice  in  some  measure  should  be  in¬ 
cluded  in  all  high  school  and  college  curricula,  for 
even  when  the  percentage  of  students  actually  special¬ 
izing  in  Education  and  electing  it  as  a  life  work  must 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  small,  all  students  who 
show  any  aptitude  for  stirring  thought,  imparting 
knowledge,  and  for  training  others,  should  be  induced 
to  participate  in  some  form  of  educational  extension, 
whether  as  teachers,  head-masters,  administrators  or 
founders.  This  applies  equally,  if  not  more  to  girls 
and  women  than  it  does  to  boys  and  men. 

Edward  Thring,  Head  Master  of  Uppingham  School, 
England,  1853-87,  says:  “In  my  judgment,  the  main 
lines  are  the  same  for  men  and  women,  .  .  .  the  same 
main  direction  of  thought  and  culture.  The  most  plain, 
the  most  practical  fact  in  man’s  world  is  this,  that 
every  human  being  for  the  first  ten  years  of  his  life, 
is  in  the  hands  of  woman.” 

The  Church  in  China  has  been  on  too  low  an  intel¬ 
lectual  scale.  Many  ministers  after  having  exhausted 
their  original  stock  of  material  for  sermons  have  fallen 

11 


into  ruts.  Their  illustrations  have  become  stereotyped 
and  uninteresting  and  out  of  date  to  the  rising  genera¬ 
tion.  As  Christian  literature  in  the  Chinese  language 
of  a  stimulative  order  is  still  very  limited,  it  is  of  great 
advantage  to  the  Chinese  preacher  to  be  able  to  read 
in  a  modern  European  language.  The  new  order  of 
college  educated  preacher  easily  fills  his  church  every 
Sunday  with  eager  hearers  and  secures  volunteers  for 
many  congregational  activities. 

Preachers  doubtless  should  be  Bible  students  and 
theologians,  but  they  should  also  be  trained  teachers. 
Preachers  should  be  teachers  with  a  preaching  method, 
that  is,  they  should  understand  the  psychology  of  their 
hearers  in  order  that  their  hearers  may  understand 
them.  The  difference  between  the  teacher  method  and 
the  preacher  method  is  largely  one  of  circumstance  and 
rhetoric.  The  preacher  gives  one  or  two  lessons  a 
week  in  a  church  covering  several  points,  mainly  with 
the  idea  of  imparting  motive  and  impulse  to  action.  A 
preacher  is  like  a  race-horse;  all  his  powers  are  con¬ 
centrated  in  his  sermon,  so  that  his  week’s  study  is 
discharged  in  thirty  minutes.  This  means  much  quiet 
study  and  hard  thinking, — the  shorter  the  harder. 

All  leaders  are  teachers  of  one  sort  or  another,  but 
not  all  teachers  are  leaders.  Some  teachers  only  im¬ 
part  information;  the  leader  teacher  teaches  his  pupils 
to  look  up  the  facts  and  factors  and  to  think  things  out 
for  themselves  and  to  apply  their  thinking  in  action 
in  the  most  effective  way.  Men  are  not  clay  to  be 
pressed  in  a  uniform  mould,  for  even  when  they  study 
the  same  subjects  they  ultimately  apply  their  thinking 


12 


power  to  a  great  diversity  of  problems.  Heads  of 
professions  and  businesses  have  many  of  the  same 
problems  as  the  headmasters  of  schools,  and  their 
business  houses  are  schools  for  their  employees. 

Why  High  Educational  Standards  in  the  Lower 

Grades  Are  Essential 

A  clear  distinction  should  be  made  between  schools 
directly  leading  to  college  and  those  not  leading  to 
college.  If  a  boy  is  going  to  college  he  should  have 
expert  teaching  in  the  lower  grades,  and  his  parents 
must  either  be  able  to  pay  for  such  teaching  or  else  it 
must  be  paid  for  in  some  other  way.  Maturity  in  all 
round  sound  thinking  is  a  matter  of  years  of  training 
and  experience.  It  takes  a  certain  amount  of  time 
and  work  to  learn  anything  of  value.  Therefore,  the 
earlier  one  begins  most  subjects  the  better.  Under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances  few  men  can  be 
called  educated  who  did  not  begin  to  apply  their  minds 
to  definite  problems  and  enter  the  struggle  for  mas¬ 
tery  of  them  early  in  life. 

The  wasted  years  in  college  preparation  are  more 
generally  in  the  elementary  than  in  the  higher  grades. 
This  is  due  to  a  lack  of  the  early  mastery  of  the  symbols 
and  instruments  of  observation  and  expression.  Boys 
and  men  bungle  along  all  their  lives  without  apparent 
improvement  because  they  did  not  master  the  rudi¬ 
ments  or  initial  steps.  Abilities  in  embryo  at  ten 
swiftly  become  impossibilities  if  their  development  is 
delayed,  and  mere  practice  which  is  bad  in  principle 
and  method  never  makes  perfect.  Students  must  thor- 

13 


oughly  understand  the  elementary  equations  and  be  able 
to  use  them  freely  and  effectively  if  they  are  to  climb 
high  on  the  educational  ladder.  The  lower  rungs  of 
the  ladder  cannot  be  left  out  or  be  insecure.  For  the 
elementary  grades  teachers  and  teaching  of  the  highest 
quality  that  can  be  secured  must  be  retained  if  the  pupil 
is  to  become  a  student. 

The  Corollary  of  Christianity  in  China 

Christian  missions  can  neither  advance  nor  retire 
from  the  field,  without  confessing  failure,  until  Chris¬ 
tian  Colleges  are  well  established  and  their  alumni 
able  and  willing  to  carry  them  on. 

The  College  is  the  nucleus  or  generative  center  from 
which  all  the  educational  lines  radiate.  It  is  not  a  fancy 
addition  of  a  certain  style  of  culture,  but  in  its  very 
nature  must  face  all  the  difficult  problems  of  lower 
as  well  as  higher  educational  training.  When  one 
thinks  in  terms  of  efficient  creative  work  it  becomes 
evident  that  certain  kinds  of  preparedness  and  ability 
to  lead  and  do,  supervise  or  superintend,  must  depend 
upon  the  college  for  fundamental  training  and  under¬ 
standing  of  principles  and  order  and  actions,  whatever 
the  vocation  may  be.  Theory  and  practice  are  not 
disconnected,  but  each  cooperates  with  the  other  and 
leads  to  further  knowledge  and  efficiency  of  action. 
The  chief  objectives  in  a  college  education  are,  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  thinking  power,  disciplined  ordered 
mental  processes,  a  judicial,  discriminating  mind,  cul¬ 
ture,  appreciation,  the  broadening  of  interest  and  sym¬ 
pathy  and  contact  with  others,  zeal  for  knowledge,  re- 

14 


search,  righteousness,  the  use  of  (tools  of  observation 
and  the  mastery  of  the  means  of  execution,  personal 
habits  in  living,  study  and  work,  wholesomeness,  a 
higher,  richer  and  more  “abundant  life.” 

So  the  college  is  both  a  center  of  vision  and  of  ad¬ 
ministrative  action  and  should  be  so  equipped  and  used 
as  an  efficient  means  of  attaining  the  objectives  of  or¬ 
ganized  Christian  educational  effort. 

While  not  disparaging  what  has  gone  before,  which 
has  freed  so  many  from  superstition  and  which  has 
brought  them  personal  joy  and  strength  in  the  new  life, 
one  may  say  that  it  has  taken  college-trained  men  to 
organize  the  Church  for  greater  things  and  to  give  its 
members  the  courage  and  standing  which  have  enabled 
them  to  reach  out  into  their  communities  in  a  larger 
way.  Church  extension  and  the  chief  weight  of  the 
Christian  movement  in  China  must  rest  upon  foreign 
initiative  and  aid  till  there  are  trained  Chinese  teachers 
with  sufficient  Christian  motive  to  enable  them  to  par¬ 
ticipate  fully  in  an  educational  advance. 

The  value  to  the  Church  in  China  of  central  schools 
and  colleges  of  the  highest  order,  capably  administered 
and  taught,  cannot  be  overestimated.  The  Church 
above  all  needs  leaders  and  supporters  with  the  most 
thorough  preparation  and  training  and  this  requires 
those  conditions  which  promote  student  organizations 
and  activities  in  forms  conducive  to  leadership. 

The  highest  and  most  self-perpetuating,  multiplying 
and  self -extending  work  a  mission  can  do  is  to  produce 
trained  leaders. 


15 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Cost  of  Secondary  Education 

The  cost  of  education,  that  is  the  cost  per  student, 
of  maintaining  a  staff  of  equivalent  standard  and 
quality,  is  not  materially  less  in  China  than  it  is  in 
America.  Estimates  of  cost  are  too  often  based  upon 
the  getting  of  so  many  students  over  so  much  ground, 
and  not  upon  their  mastery  of  principles  so  as  to  use 
them  freely  in  other  cases  than  the  ones  given  in  the 
book  and  upon  their  development  in  power  of  initiative. 

In  mission  budgets  and  accounting  the  real  cost  of 
education  is  frequently  hidden  under  such  general 
headings  as  “Salaries,”  “Furlough  Allowances,” 
“Travel,”  “House  Rent,”  etc.,  covering  a  whole  station 
or  mission,  which  headings  do  not  show  what  portion 
of  these  various  items  are  charged  against  a  particular 
school  for  the  support  of  the  teaching  staff  and  for  its 
administration,  for  the  cultivation  of  givers,  etc.  This 
leads  to  the  happy  delusion  that  education  in  China  is 
materially  less  than  it  is  in  America. 

The  minimum  requirements  of  a  teaching  staff  for 
any  given  school  must  be  determined  by  certain  factors, 
such  as  (a)  the  hours  of  class  room  work  per  week  or 
per  year;  (b)  the  number  of  students  to  be  taught 
and  (c)  the  nature  of  the  subjects.  The  quality  of  the 
results  will  be  determined  by  multiplying  the  “class 
hours”  by  the  number  and  quality  of  the  teachers  and 
dividing  it  by  the  number  and  lack  of  quality  or  pre¬ 
paredness  of  the  students. 


16 


Ten  students  in  half  an  hour  will  get  from  a  teacher 
not  very  far  from  the  same  amount  of  help  as  twenty 
would  in  a  full  hour  or  thirty  would  in  an  hour  and 
a  half.  Of  course,  it  is  easily  seen  that  this  is  too 
mathematical  and  does  not  take  into  consideration  cer¬ 
tain  psychological  factors.  However,  personal  power 
in  an  average  good  teacher  only  carries  him  or  his 
pupils  so  far.  He  may  be  able  to  lecture  to  a  class 
of  one  thousand  persons  as  well  or  better  than  he  can 
to  a  class  of  ten,  but  he  cannot  teach  or  tutor  a  thousand 
persons  who  have  not  already  been  trained  to  do  their 
own  work. 

Let  us  take  an  extreme  case,  a  class  might  have  as 
many  as  thirty  students,  but  no  teacher  should  have 
more  than  thirty  hours  of  class  work  per  week.  In 
a  class  of  thirty  students  the  teacher  could  only  give 
two  minutes  of  individual  attention  to  each  student 
per  hour  of  sixty  minutes  or  ten  minutes  per 
day  during  class  room  work.  If  the  students  were 
studying  six  subjects  this  would  mean  an  aver¬ 
age  ten  minutes  individual  attention  per  week 
for  each  subject,  but  as  in  most  cases  over  half  the 
time  is  taken  up  teaching  the  class  as  a  whole  it  would 
only  allow  one  minute  per  hour  for  individual  attention. 

If  instead  of  thirty  hours  per  week  the  teacher  had 
twenty-five  hours  of  class  room  work  and  twenty-five 
students  and  gave  half  his  time  to  teaching  the  class 
as  a  whole  and  the  other  half  to  individual  attention 
the  equation  would  appear  as  follows:  25  (hours)  X 
60  (minutes)  —  1500  minutes  divided  by  2  (}4  time) 
—  750  (minutes)  divided  by  25  (students)  =  30 

17 


(minutes)  per  student  per  week.  This  is  better  but 
even  with  this  amount  of  personal  attention  sufficient 
tutoring  cannot  be  practiced. 

Running  a  school  is  a  business  and  as  such  requires 
balanced  judgment.  One  teacher  can  teach  all  that  he 
knows  and  by  process  of  good  teaching  may  enable 
his  pupils  to  acquire  much  more  than  he  himself  knows, 
while  other  teachers  to  put  it  mildly,  “labor  under 
difficulties.”  The  principal  or  superintendent  has  to 
measure  these  capacities.  It  ought,  however,  to  be 
perfectly  clear  that  the  average  student  in  a  middle 
school  will  require  several  times  five  or  six  minutes  a 
day  “tutoring”  to  make  him  proficient  and  that  the 
teacher  will  require  fully  as  much  time  per  student  to 
allow  him  to  do  work  of  a  strictly  high  quality,  such 
for  example  as  is  found  in  our  best  schools  in  America 
and  England. 

To  assume  a  case  under  very  favorable  conditions, 
in  order  to  graduate  students  in  a  six  year  course, 
from  sixth  grade  elementary  grade  to  college  entrance, 
the  number  of  students  and  teachers  required,  in  order 
to  insure  results  and  have  twenty  or  twenty-four  stu¬ 
dents  in  the  graduation  class  would  be  something  like 
this : 

STUDENTS  TEACHERS  STUDENTS  TEACHERS 


4th  year  Middle  School. . 

20 

1 

24 

1 

3rd  year  Middle  School. . 

27 

1 

31 

1 

2nd  year  Middle  School.. 

36 

2 

42 

2 

1st  year  Middle  School. . 

48 

2 

56 

3 

7th  year  Elementary  Sch. 

64 

2 

75 

2 

6th  year  Elementary  Sch. 

85 

3 

100 

4 

280 

11 

328 

13 

18 


These  estimates  would  be  on  the  bases  approximating 
twenty-five  students  for  each  teacher,  whereas  half  as 
many  more  would  be  nearer  the  actual  requirements. 

PER 

STUDENT 

a — The  estimated  cost  of  11  teachers  for  280  students  G$  81 

b _ The  estimated  cost  of  16  teachers  for  280  students —  138 

c _ The  estimated  cost  of  13  teachers  for  328  students —  92 

(j _ The  estimated  cost  of  19  teachers  for  328  students  128 

a  and  c=l  teacher  to  25  students,  b  and  d=l  teacher  to  17 
students 

The  median  of  a  and  b  $109.50  is  about  the  same 
as  c  and  d  $110.00.  This  is  the  estimated  cost  for 
teachers  only,  and  does  not  include  rent  and  mainte¬ 
nance  of  the  educational  plant,  but  does  include  rental 
of  staff  residences.  Nor  does  it  include  cost  of  admin¬ 
istration  and  incidental  expenses,  nor  students  loom 
rents  and  board.  Probably  the  whole  cost,  not  deduct¬ 
ing  fees,  will  be  twice  the  cost  of  the  teachers. 

As  the  Commission’s  Report  shows,  it  is  not  most 
economical  to  run  smaller  schools.  Though  many  leaders 
of  the  first  order  have  been  tutored  in  very  small  schools 
where  they  have  had  much  individual  attention  or  tutor¬ 
ing,  thus  while  the  cost  per  student  may  have  been 
higher,  the  results  may  have  justified  the  cost. 

As  the  case  stands  now  there  are  many  small  schools 
with  three  or  four  teachers  for  thirty  high  school 
students  and  less  than  six  students  in  the  fourth  year 
class.  Unfortunately  it  often  comes  about  that  such  a 
school  will  have  the  same  number  of  teachers  when  the 
thirty  students  become  a  hundred. 

19 


In  considering  these  details  we  must  not  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  there  must  be  a  Christian  Educational 
System  and  that  college  trained  teachers  are  needed  for 
high  school  work  and  high  school  graduates  for  the 
grades  below.  Whether  a  middle  school  is  to  be  a  lower 
or  higher  middle  school  or  both  can  only  be  settled  by 
establishing  a  standard  reckoned  in  terms  of  the  num¬ 
ber  of  students  available  for  the  upper  classes  and  the 
number  of  college  trained  teachers  on  the  staff.  The 
cost  of  teaching  with  these  factors  will  give  us  some 
idea  of  the  standards  adopted.  The  whole  cost  less 
receipts  from  students  (for  tuition,  incidentals  and 
board)  will  show  very  clearly  the  actual  cost  to  the 
school  or  mission. 


20 


CHAPTER  IV 

Suggestions  on  the  Rural  Schools  Problem 

The  problem  of  rural  schools  is  substantially  different 
from  that  of  the  city  elementary  and  middle  school. 
It  takes  unusual  grit  and  administrative  ability  and  self- 
denial  for  a  highly  educated  man  or  woman  to  open  a 
school  in  even  one  of  the  larger  villages  without  outside 
aid,  and  very  few  such  young  people  under  the  present 
social  conditions  can  be  expected  to  immolate  them¬ 
selves  in  small  villages.  Conditions  and  tendencies 
should  be  carefully  studied  and  weighed  in  the  attempt 
to  solve  the  rural  day  school  problem. 

In  the  future,  village  primary  schools  may  have  to 
depend  to  a  large  degree  for  their  teachers  upon  village 
girls  or  young  women  and  widows.  It  would  appear 
on  the  surface  that  the  solution  of  the  village  school 
problem  is  largely  drawing  these  boys  and  girls  from 
the  villages  into  lower  normal  or  high  school  normal 
schools  centrally  located  where  they  may  get  their  first 
inspiration  and  training  for  such  work. 

The  prospective  Chinese  teacher  for  a  village  school 
should  not  be  taken  far  from  his  native  environment. 
It  would  seem  best  that  lower  normal  schools  to  prepare 
girls  for  teachers  in  village  schools  should  be  closely 
associated  with  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  schools 
for  which  they  are  endeavoring  to  prepare  the  teachers. 
There  should  be  no  attempt  to  teach  English  in  these 
schools.  These  young  teachers  should  be  closely  super- 

21 


vised  and  their  education  continued.  It  is  not  in  any 
sense  a  lowering  of  our  aim,  of  opening  the  way  for 
the  highest  education  possible  for  the  individual,  to 
adapt  and  limit  the  education  given  to  village  teachers, 
most  of  whom  will  be  girls,  in  order  that  they  shall 
return  to  their  own  villages  as  lower  primary  teachers 
in  village  primary  schools,  especially  as  young  women, 
unmarried  or  married,  are  by  nature  the  most  fitted 
and  accessible  instruments  for  such  work  and  the  only 
ones  available  for  the  economic  extension  over  the 
entire  country  of  elementary  instruction. 

As  the  Chinese  must  use  literary  characters,  most  of 
which  characters  are  not  pronounced  in  speaking,  one 
wants  to  know  how  many  years  it  takes  for  a  student 
to  learn  to  read  freely  enough  in  Chinese  character  in 
order  to  read  the  Bible  and  ordinary  newspapers,  and 
be  able  to  write  an  ordinary  letter  in  easy  Wenli  char¬ 
acter?  Some  say  five  years,  but  to  become  a  junior 
master  in  charge  of  a  village  school  certainly  would 
require  eight  or  nine  years. 

The  teachers  in  the  lower  normal  schools  should  be 
high  school  graduates  with  educational  courses  and 
training  and  have  as  broad  an  education  as  possible, 
including  home-making.  The  head  of  such  schools 
should  have  at  least  two  years  in  college,  taking  at 
least  one  year  in  educational  science  and  school  admin¬ 
istration. 

Although  the  ultimate  aim  in  agricultural  districts 
will  be  to  develop  the  country  high  school,  the  grade 
attained  by  rural  normal  schools  will  at  first  be  lim¬ 
ited  by  local  conditions,  which  in  most  cases  will  prob- 


ably  limit  them  to  the  grade  of  the  proposed  lower 
middle  school,  with  two-thirds  of  the  students  in  the 
higher  primary  grades.  In  such  schools  a  vocational 
course  (such  as  may  readily  be  introduced  in  a  prac¬ 
tical  form  like  sericulture,  applying  simple  scientific 
methods  to  an  existing  industry)  even  for  a  short 
period  would  be  an  attractive  bait  to  lure  the  boys  and 
girls  from  the  villages  to  a  nearby  center  and  a  strong 
inducement  to  the  parents  to  send  them  and  meet  their 
expenses  and  for  the  villages  to  employ  them  to  conduct 
primary  schools. 

The  Agricultural  attache  at  a  rural  normal  or  high 
school  should  have  had  an  agricultural  college  education 
especially  fitting  him  for  this  type  of  work.  Then  if 
he  undertakes  the  work  of  conducting  a  model  farm 
demonstration  he  would  better  follow  the  example  set 
by  experience  in  America  and  get  the  best  local  man 
he  can  employ  as  assistant  superintendent  or  “number 
one  boy.”  If  he  is  a  foreigner  he  would  better  “ob¬ 
serve”  for  some  time  before  undertaking  anything  be¬ 
yond  and  improvement  of  existing  methods,  until  he 
is  quite  sure  of  his  ground.  Small  experiments  not 
included. 

With  the  proper  man  in  charge,  the  rural  school 
may  begin  as  an  adjunct  to  the  demonstration  farm., 
but,  if  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  rural  school  work 
in  the  district  with  no  local  central  school  nearby  and 
without  close  supervision  of  a  competent  supervisor, 
it  should  be  in  charge  of  a  well-trained  teacher. 
The  specialist  in  agriculture  will  have  enough  to  occupy 
all  his  time,  without  looking  after  the  very  technical 


matter  of  supervising  elementary  schools  or  a  central 
boarding  school. 

The  recommendations  of  the  Commission  are  so  re¬ 
plete  with  suggestions  regarding  vocational,  social,  agri¬ 
cultural  and  home-making  courses  and  training,  and 
the  adaptation  of  foreign  aided  schools  to  China’s  defi¬ 
nite  needs,  that  one  has  to  watch  lest  ready  assent  to 
some  of  these  excellent  proposals  leads  him  to  conclude 
that  the  Commission  has  overlooked  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  finding  the  personnel  to  carry  them  out. 

We  are  still  very  much  in  the  position  of  the  small 
boy  sitting  on  the  wharf  with  his  line  in  the  water 
waiting  for  a  bite  and  contemplating  his  chances  of 
catching  a  fish,  while  he  is  saying  to  himself,  “When 
I  catch  this  fish  and  another  I’ll  have  two.”  So  far  as 
I  have  observed,  we  have  not  as  yet  one  such  school 
completely  adapted  to  the  training  of  teachers  for  the 
lower  primary  work  in  the  villages,  and  it  is  still  only 
an  ideal  on  paper  that  village  teachers  should  be  agri- 
culturalized  or  industrialized,  even  in  a  small  degree 
through  books  or  talks  and  the  school  garden  or  work¬ 
shop. 

Perhaps  I  have  not  the  equal  balance  of  all  things 
Chinese  and  especially  rural  education  in  China  and 
how  we  as  foreigners  can  initiate  and  participate  in 
effective  measures  to  promote  or  conduct  a  system  of 
rural  schools.  My  impression,  however,  is  that  so 
far  as  the  Chinese  Christian  forces,  coupled  with  the 
missionary  forces,  attempt  to  conduct  rural  schools, 
they  will,  for  the  next  ten  years,  be  much  more  apt  to 
succeed  if  they  were  closely  connected  with  an  Educa- 

24 


tional  Department  or  Headquarters  in  a  Christian 
college. 

Of  course,  if  a  specialist  on  Rural  Education  of  just 
the  right  sort  were  to  go  into  an  agricultural  center, 
learn  the  language,  study  the  people  and  conditions  and 
work  out  a  good  plan,  the  whole  experiment  would  be 
individual  and  be  worked  out  according  to  the  said 
specialist’s  ability  to  secure  the  necessary  local  co¬ 
operation.  But,  whether  Chinese  or  foreign  or  both, 
such  specialists  will  in  all  probability  not  be  equal  to 
the  working  out  of  a  plan  or  system  taking  in  the 
training  and  supervision  of  the  teachers  in  a  dozen  or 
dozens  of  village  schools,  so  that  the  whole  will  be 
self-supporting,  without  an  educational  base,  such  as 
at  present  would  only  be  found  at  a  college  center. 

The  country  normal  school  could  start  on  a  low 
enough  basis  to  get  the  business  going  and  gradually 
expand  its  curriculum  with  special  reference  to  con¬ 
tinuing  the  education  of  village  teachers,  supplement¬ 
ing  their  work  by  a  few  specially  trained  visiting  teach¬ 
ers  who  will  visit  each  school  in  turn  and  help  the 
teacher  on  the  special  lines.  This  means  simple  but 
very  high  class  management.  The  normal  training  will 
be  given  in  the  earlier  stages  after  the  student  has 
become  a  village  school  teacher,  by  visiting  supervisors 
and  week-end  classes  and  summer  school  teacher  in¬ 
stitutes. 

The  young  teacher  of  a  village  school  cannot  be 
expected  to  carry  much  weight  in  a  farming  village 
considering  the  many  types  of  agriculture  already  suc¬ 
cessful  in  operation.  There  is  even  danger  that  such 

25 


village  school  teachers  may  assume  to  know  all  that 
the  farmers  in  the  village  know  plus  the  rudimentary 
knowledge  gained  at  the  rural  normal  school.  Whereas 
the  chief  value  of  ruralizing  these  normal  schools  is 
to  introduce  him  and  his  pupils  into  a  life-long  study 
of  rural  and  agricultural  problems  and  have  them 
realize  that  such  studies  have  real  values  in  their  im¬ 
mediate  life  and  surroundings,  so  that  they  may  not 
regard  education  as  something  foreign  to  the  soil  and 
rural  life. 

It  is  not  easy  to  add  very  much  to  the  community 
knowledge  from  the  outside  without  getting  very  close 
to  the  actual  operations  as  at  present  conducted.  There 
are  a  few  outstanding  defects  in  Chinese  agriculture, 
some  of  which  any  wide-awake  boy  or  girl  can  learn 
but  to  move  toward  improvement  belongs  to  the  system 
and  not  to  the  village  teacher  alone. 


26 


? 


